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Wednesday, 6 November 2013

‘CANCEL MATCH IN PROTEST AGAINST KING’

South African trade unionists have called for a football
match with Swaziland to be cancelled as a protest against King Mswati III’s ‘brutal
monarchist dictatorship’.

Bafana Bafana, the South African national football team,
is due to play Swaziland in a friendly match in the Swazi capital Mbabane on 15
November 2013.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has
called on the South African Football Association to cancel the match in protest
against the king who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute
monarch.

In a statement COSATU called King Mswati’s regime a ‘brutal
monarchist dictatorship’.

It said, ‘This absolute monarch denies the people the
most basic of democratic rights. He has banned political parties. He refuses to
recognise the legitimate trade union organisation TUCOSWA. He uses force and
fear to intimidate and subjugate the people of Swaziland.

‘Meanwhile he continues to loot the state resources to
feed himself and his rapacious criminal family, at a time when the Swaziland
economy and its health system are collapsing and poverty levels have escalated.’

The call is in line with the federation’s support for an
ongoing cultural boycott of King Mswati’s Swaziland.

Prodemocracy groups are campaigning for a ban on political
parties to be lifted and for the King’s political powers to be curtailed.

COSATU said, ‘But the ruling Swazi elite cannot stop the
democratic will of the people from expressing itself. It is unable, despite
beatings, bannings and jailings, to suppress the democratic spirit of the brave
freedom-loving people of Swaziland.

‘That is why the democratic forces in Swaziland have
asked for a cultural boycott, similar to the sport and cultural boycott against
apartheid South Africa, which was such a key weapon in the struggle to isolate
the racist regime.’

‘The aim of the boycott is to expose the true nature of
the royal dictatorship and show the people that the rest of the world is on
their side. It is a campaign that has been supported by hundreds of artists,
musicians and actors from South Africa and around the world, and one in which COSATU
has been a key player.’

It added the cancellation of the match, ‘will send a
powerful message to the regime that the South African sporting community and
the people as a whole reject the dictatorship and denial of human rights and
democracy to the people’.